Dennison Grant | Page 7

pass up
your plate. Powerful dry, though. That's only a small bit; here's a better
slice here. Dry summers gen'rally mean open winters, but you can't
never tell. Zen, how 'bout you? Old Y.D.'s been too long on the job to
take chances. Mother? How much did you say, Transley? About two
thousand tons? Not enough. Don't care if I do,"--helping himself to
another piece of beef.
"I think you'll find two thousand tons, good hay and good
measurement," said Transley.
"I'm sure of it," rejoined his host, generously. "I'm carryin' more steers
than usual, and'll maybe run in a bunch of doggies from Manitoba to
boot. I got to have more hay."
So the meal progressed, the rancher furnishing both the hospitality and
the conversation. Transley occasionally broke in to give assent to some
remark, but his interruption was quite unnecessary. It was Y.D.'s
practice to take assent for granted. Once or twice the women interjected

a lead to a different subject of conversation in which their words would
have carried greater authority, but Y.D. instantly swung it back to the
all-absorbing topic of hay.
The Chinese boy served a pudding of some sort, and presently the meal
was ended.
"She's been a dry summer--powerful dry," said the rancher, with a wink
at his guests. "Zen, I think there's a bit of gopher poison in there yet,
ain't there?"
The girl left the room without remark, returning shortly with a jug and
glasses, which she placed before her father.
"I suppose you wear a man's size, Transley," he said, pouring out a big
drink of brown liquor, despite Transley's deprecating hand. "Linder,
how many fingers? Two? Well, we'll throw in the thumb. Y.D? If you
please, just a little snifter. All set?"
The rancher rose to his feet, and the company followed his example.
"Here's ho!--and more hay," he said, genially.
"Ho!" said Linder.
"The daughter of the Y.D!" said Transley, looking across the table at
the girl. She met his eyes full; then, with a gleam of white teeth, she
raised an empty glass and clinked it against his.
The men drained their glasses and re-seated themselves, but the women
remained standing.
"Perhaps you will excuse us now," said the rancher's wife. "You will
wish to talk over business. Y.D. will show you upstairs, and we will
expect you to be with us for breakfast."
With a bow she left the room, followed by her daughter. Linder had a
sense of being unsatisfied; it was as though a ravishing meal has been
placed before a hungry man, and only its aroma had reached his senses

when it had been taken away. Well, it provoked the appetite--
The rancher re-filled the glasses, but Transley left his untouched, and
Linder did the same. There were business matters to discuss, and it was
no fair contest to discuss business in the course of a drinking bout with
an old stager like Y.D.
"I got to have another thousand tons," the rancher was saying. "Can't
take chances on any less, and I want you boys to put it up for me."
"Suits me," said Transley, "if you'll show me where to get the hay."
"You know the South Y.D?"
"Never been on it."
"Well, it's a branch of the Y.D. which runs south-east from The Forks.
Guess it got its name from me, because I built my first cabin at The
Forks. That was about the time you was on a milk diet, Transley, and
us old-timers had all outdoors to play with. You see, the Y.D. is a
cantank'rous stream, like its godfather. At The Forks you'd nat'rally
suppose is where two branches joined, an' jogged on henceforth in
double harness. Well, that ain't it at all. This crick has modern ideas, an'
at The Forks it divides itself into two, an' she hikes for the Gulf o'
Mexico an' him for Hudson's Bay. As I was sayin', I built my first cabin
at The Forks--a sort o' peek-a-boo cabin it was, where the wolves usta
come an' look in at nights. Well, I usta look out through the same holes.
I had the advantage o' usin' language, an' I reckon we was about equal
scared. There was no wife or kid in those days."
The rancher paused, took a long draw on his pipe, and his eyes glowed
with the light of old recollections.
"Well, as I was sayin'," he continued presently, "folks got to callin' the
stream the Y.D., after me. That's what you get for bein' first on the
ground--a monument for ever an ever. This bein' the main stream got
the name proper, an' the other branch bein' smallest an' running kind o'
south nat'rally got called the South Y.D. I run stock in both valleys

when I was at